I'll second hepcat's opinion - the game is phenomenal. I got the game late last week, and we ended up playing it four times over the weekend. Even though we lost all four, each game was really enjoyable. It's amazing how well the game creates a story as you play. While there are a lot of rules and complexity, it's one of those games where everything is logical - when in doubt, whatever seems like the most thematic or realistic way to play is usually the correct way to play.

As for the wife/girlfriend factor, as long as someone knows the rules and can keep the game going, I think it's really pretty good. My wife joins in board game sessions from time to time but is not really a gamer. After playing this two player last week and losing about halfway in, she immediately suggested we play again right then. Even my kids (11 and 8 ) picked it up within a handful of turns.

Our company shuts down between Christmas and New Years, so this last short work week before the holiday is pretty much shot as far as productivity goes. We're all at work, but nobody's working too hard.

We ditched DirecTV a couple of months ago, and I have not missed it at all. At first we used an XBox 360 in the family room for ESPN, Netflix and Hulu Plus. With the savings from the first month (~$100) we bought a wifi-capable blu-ray player for the TV in our bedroom, so now we have Netflix and Hulu Plus streaming to that TV as well. Most of the network shows we watch are on Hulu Plus, and we have easily months of TV backlogged on Netflix.

The ONLY thing I cannot watch is St. Louis Blues hockey games, since they're all on Fox Sports, but I'm not going back to $70+ per month just for that.

Congrats! I'm guessing you ought to be getting to a point here where dan tests are no longer done. Seems like around 4th or 5th dan most styles just start conferring the rank, rather than having you test for it.

The art I'm studying now has licenses, but not belt ranks. So no tests. I kind of like just going to practice and being told "Here you go, you're now a grade higher."

Here's what I want to figure out: when I'm faced with two directions to go on a MP map, how do I avoid choosing the one that is completely empty, and leaves me exposed to the enemies coming from the other direction that I didn't see who then shoot me in the back of the head? This happens to me ALL THE TIME.

I have had a lot of success with the silenced scar. The silencer keeps you off their radar whenever you shoot, which is a surprisingly effective way to remain hidden.

I'll second this opinion. If I can find a weapon that has iron sights I can live with, I almost always put a silencer on it. It's amazing how much more effective a silencer can make you. Whenever I run across two enemies with a normal weapon, 98 times out of 100 one of them will kill me, even if I get the drop on them, see them from behind, and get the other first. With a silencer, I'd say half the time I'm able to get them both as long as I don't run into them head-to-head. I think most players unconsciously keep their attention on the mini-map, and any red dot nearby from you shooting draws their attention and brings the pain. Keeping your location off their mini-map is really, really effective.

I don't have the reaction times to match a twitchy teenager or college kid, and my internet connection means lag always keeps me a half-step behind. The silencer does me a world of good in most games. I've learned to live with the range reduction tradeoff.

I need to readjust my play style once again to get back to moving slowly and methodically. In Black Ops it was forgiving enough that you could do a little bit of run-and-gun, but MW3 seems to punish it mercilessly. Yet there are times when I try hard to move slowly and methodically only be to ambushed by four enemies all sprinting full-out.

I've gotten to where I almost don't even register when I die in CoD, unless it happens several times in a row. Near the end of a match I have a pretty good idea of how many kills I got, but I hardly ever know what my death count is. It's usually around 1:1, but there have been an awful lot of matches where I see the endgame scoreboard and say "I died 18 times? REALLY?!"

Quote

Ultimately I just need more time with the game. Like now!

This is why I had no qualms buying the game. I knew I'd get sucked right back in after only a few games. Working until 6pm tonight is going to draaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag.

I heard Hark and others last night mentioning the slower movement speed and how much it bothered them. I didn't notice it at all. Is it significantly different from Black Ops? Granted, I haven't played BLOPS in months, but I thought the movement speed felt about the same.

If anything, a slightly lower speed is something I'm in favor of, as there were numerous occasions last night when I came across an enemy and was able to bring sights up and get the kill rather than die instantly. Delightful.

I wish it showed how your fingers should be placed for the song even when just playing a single note (i.e. so I'm not sure hen-pecking each note). Even having only played a couple of hours, I definitely think I'm improving. And my finger tips are feeling it.

One thing I noticed is that in some cases, the game actually DOES recommend chord fingerings for a series of single notes. An example would be the Tom Petty song "Good Enough". In the intro of the song, you play a series of single notes that are all part of an E minor chord. Even though you're playing mostly open string notes, the game still shows an Em fingering on the screen. It's tough to see if you're not looking for it, because you tend to focus on the single notes rather than the "here's what's coming up" part of the fretboard. The song then progresses to a series of notes that are all part of an A minor chord, then C major, then B7. In all cases, it shows a chord fingering on the screen even though you're only playing single notes. That helped me quite a bit, as it's much easier to just switch chords rather than try to finger each individual note as it comes up.

I've thought about changing mine, just because I have gamed with a lot of OO/GT people, and my gamertag "JNacht" has absolutely nothing to do with "Boudreaux". I just didn't give my gamertag a lot of thought. Boudreaux was already taken, and I abhor the variations like /Boudreaux\ or **Boudreaux** or Boudreaux9372 so I went with the other.

It wasn't until awhile later that I realized people who knew me as Boudreaux on various forums were probably going "who the hell is JNacht?".

On the other hand, I have no problem keeping Isgrimnur/Hadron Smasher straight, so maybe it's not a big deal.

If you are just starting out on guitar, I would not buy used. You won't know what to look out for, and run the risk of buying a piece of crap.

The guitar bundled with Rocksmith is an Epiphone Les Paul Jr, a decent entry-level guitar. It retails by itself for about $130, so getting the bundle is saving you maybe $10. It's not a bad guitar for the price. You could always find a guitar store and try one out, or see what other guitars in the same price range feel like. Different guitars actually feel quite different - I've played a Fender Stratocaster for years, and a Gibson Les Paul feels like a massive chunk of lead in my lap. Feels totally different. You might as well hold a few and see if one in particular feels good. Then go online and check reviews and see if it sounds like a winner.

However, if you do decide to go with the bundle I think you'll be getting a pretty decent guitar.

How does the game designate chords? Does it just list out the fingering for each string like tablature, or does it tell you the chord name? Can it understand chord variations or do you have to play the specific version they have in mind, e.g., can you play G as both

300023

and

334553

?

It does both. The chord notation comes across the screen as a "boxed" notation with a particular chord shape in mind. Usually, I've found that the particular chord shape it asks for is the most appropriate one to use. If the song is using a barre chord progression up and down the neck, it won't switch to an open chord shape because a guitarist probably wouldn't do that. If the song is using an open chord progression (like D-C-G) it won't suddenly witch to a barre chord for no reason, because again it makes it much more difficult to play.

That said, I don't know if it will recognize an alternate chord fingering as "correct" when determining playing success. It will sound fine, since it's using your guitar input directly.

I'm enjoying it and my only complaint is the damn slow menus and constant pauses and load times. A game of this graphics details should have load times no longer than a second. It's just lazy programming I think. This is on the PS3, I don't know if it's any different on the Xbox.

It's the same on 360, and yes, really the only complaint I can levy against it. There are some parts of the menu that are just weird. If I go to the Songs list, and pick a song, it might have a single-note arrangement, a chord arrangement, and a combo arrangement ("Sweet Home Alabama" does this). So I'll try the single note version. Play though, fun! Now I want to try the chord arrangement. Can I pick that version and play? Sure, but first I have to go back to my current progress in my "Journey", then go back to Songs, then go find that song again, then I can pick the alternate version. They really seem to want to force you into the game progression. It needs a dedicated Quickplay mode where I can pick whatever I want, play it, and then get dumped right back to song selections.

I'm curious to see if anything changes once you get through the entire "Journey" sequence.

There couldn't be any lag adjustment that they could have used to compensate?

Not when the audio is driven entirely by user input. The A/V sync disarm mentioned is done by delaying the video signal to coincide with the audio - by the time the audio is processed and output to the speakers, the video is delayed so they match. That doesn't work with this type of closed loop. The video (scrolling notes) prompts the user to play a note, which creates an audio input (guitar signal) that is processed by the game and output to the audio system. If the video is delayed, then the user input is delayed, and the audio is delayed further. Impossible to get around that. The only way to rectify the lag is to improve the latency of the digital audio processing.

Even if you ignored video and just played via audio cues, there's still the latency between when the game plays the backing audio track, and the user plays a note in time with the music. If it takes 200msec to process the guitar input into an audio output, the only way to get around that would be to play ahead of the music - talk about unacceptable.

There's a reason many of the most popular guitar amps still use analog vacuum tube technology from the mid-1900s. When it comes to audio, digital ain't always better.

I'm using standard analog audio as well. There's a tiny bit of lag but after 5 seconds playing I don't notice it at all. I have no HDMI input to my home theater receiver so I've never used it for audio.

I got my first real six-string,Bought it at the five and dime.Played it 'til my fingers bled...

Turns out that can actually happen. Whoops!

Seriously, I haven't played this much in months. Some of these songs, eh. Not that great, and some of these bands really like to hang out on the high B and E strings a lot. Some of these songs are fantastic, though. I can't get enough Black Keys. Also, I swear I'm unlocking songs that aren't in the official set list. I just unlocked a song called "Jules" that is fantastic, very Santana-esque.

One of the coolest (IMO) things about Rocksmith is the unlockable amp and pedal effects models combined with the free play mode. As you progress through the game, you unlock new guitars, amps, and pedals that you can combine to create custom "tones". You can save your custom tones to different slots in the game, and then load them up via button presses on the controller. Then you go into free play mode, and Rocksmith basically becomes your amp and pedals. This was one of the things I was most looking forward to and it works great. It's basically thousands of dollars of guitar amps and effects crammed into an $80 software package.

I bought the 360 version. I wanted to be able to play in the living room with the audio cranked through my home theater system.

A second thought on how much I'm digging Rocksmith - I completely forgot last night that Batman Arkham City was sitting on the counter. I noticed it this morning and thought "Oh, yeah! That came out too."

I figure I'll be documenting my progress over time. I'm not very musically inclined, but I'm patient and resilient. I actually regret not documenting my process with RB3 Pro Keys more, since it did turn out to be an amazing learning experience.

That's interesting. My wife, who plays piano, hated RB3 Pro Keys. The on-screen keyboard display had no bearing whatsoever on actual musical notation, so it was really difficult for her to learn anything.

I found Rocksmith at Target over lunch here, so I'm ready to go when I finally have some time later tonight. Can't wait!

I'm going to try to find a copy around town today. I pre-ordered from Amazon, but for some reason it still hasn't shipped and is showing a delivery estimate of late next week. I'm guessing something must have happened with Amazon's allotment of stock, because they never offered release day shipping, either.

Damn, some of you guys get up early. I gradually adjusted myself to be able to wake up without an alarm, usually about 20-30 minutes after the sun comes up. Which means I get up late in the winter, and earlier in the summer. But a typical day would be:

out of bed by 7:00-7:30off to work by about 8:00work until 4:00 - 5:00, head home5:00 through 9:00 is family/activity time - dinner, kids, maybe a bit of work follow-up or emailing, occasional events or martial arts practice, then bedtime routines for the kids9:00 - midnight is free time for me and the wife. Usually we'll hang out and watch TV, I'll do some gaming, email, etc. Sometimes we work out together, or play board games.

The period between kids' bedtime and my bedtime is my only chance for gaming or "me time". It irritates me sometimes that I have to spend my entire day doing things for other people before I finally get some time for myself. I suppose I could flip it around and get up early and do my own thing before work, but I'm not much of a morning person.

Finished this up last night and holy crap - the ending of The Gunstringer is the most hilariously over-the-top ending I've seen in a game in a long time. I was actually laughing out loud the entire time. Really, really enjoyed it. The entire presentation of the game as a stage play with audience reactions and narrator voice-over is just brilliant.

Some minor Kinect control issues that were a minor annoyance at times, but I discovered (rather late) that the game is far more forgiving than I initially thought. There is no reason for control problems to ever cause frustration in the game.

Also, it feels infinitely cooler to play the game with my son's toy Colt revolver in my hand rather than pointing my finger.

I played the demo last night. Unless I missed some esoteric feature that affects basic gameplay, I didn't see much that made me want to drop $60 on it to replace NHL 10.

It's subtle, but hugely different. The player and puck physics feel much more realistic in 12 over 10, sometimes to the point of maddening frustration. The thing I always noticed about NHL10 was how the puck was almost always under control. Passing was crisp and direct, and I really never saw the chaotic scrums and loss of possession that I see in actual hockey games.

That's all different in NHL12 - controlling the puck becomes a struggle, passing takes much more careful consideration and planning, and getting everything to work right is much more difficult (to me). As such, putting a play together and getting the puck in the net is much more satisfying.

That said, I have a ridiculous love/hate relationship with the online play. Most importantly, I suck - so being blown out by 3 or 4 goals is not uncommon for me. You amass points and level up with wins - I assume for matchmaking - and it's insanely easy to fall right back down after a win. I won a couple of games and went from level 2 to level 4. Today, after three straight losses, I'm back down at level 1 again. It's a ton of fun, but goddamn that's frustrating.

Is it typical Twisted Pixel punishing, frustrating difficulty? As much as I like their sense of humor, all their games after The Maw have just utterly failed for me as games that I enjoy playing.

So far it's not punishing at all. I've had a decent challenge through the first two acts, but nothing too difficult at all.

The only Kinect tracking issues I've had were with firing the gun. Occasionally I'll attempt to fire (which you do by raising your hand up to your shoulder as if handling pistol recoil) and nothing happens. It's not consistent and so far is a minor irritant only. For the most part it works pretty well.

I do wish there were some way to utilize the Kinect such that I could actually aim at the screen, instead of just moving onscreen reticules using my hands. It's a subtle difference, but it would make a huge impact on playing the game. I especially notice this in the Gunstringer sequences where you have two pistols and are aiming both at enemies on the screen.

I've played several online games in the last couple of days with friends, and getting into a public "friendly" game is a snap. Within a couple of menus I can invite an XBox Live Party into a game, get us on the same team, make it a public game, and get 4-5 opponents on the other team, then go. It's a blast. I imagine that jumping into public games by yourself would be nearly as easy.

I was going to pass, but I have three other friends who are all picking it up, and there will be plenty of co-op and multiplayer action with them. Horde mode alone will keep us entertained for weeks. Throw in the $20 pre-order credit which will help with Arkham City, MW3, Rocksmith, Skyrim, etc. and it's hard to pass this one up.

Picked up The Gunstringer yesterday along with the free Fruit Ninja code. For a discounted game, this one's a total winner. The art style and narration are fantastic, the action and gameplay is actually more varied and more difficult than I expected, and the stage play presentation is just genius.

I was a little disheartened that the entire game is only 4-5 hours, but it turns out I can only play about 30 minutes at a time. Holding both arms up, aiming and shooting for 30 minutes is tough! My shoulders were burning last night.

We just stream netflix/hulu plus via the 360 and we're pretty happy. Hockey season might be a challenge... but we are saving so much money it's not even funny (our DSL bill is now $36/mo for another 3 months, then $50/mo. Our cable bill was $135 and going up.)

Given that we were going to have broadband internet and Netflix anyway, dropping cable is a huge savings. We'll basically be paying $8/month to add Hulu Plus instead of $100/month for DTV.

Yes, I just canceled our DirecTV account. We've been quite happy with DirecTV for the last ten years, but we just can't justify the $100 a month. We could have dropped that down to about $50/mo with only a single TV and their barebones package, but between OTA HD channels and ESPN/Netflix/Hulu on XBox Live, I can't think of anything we'll be missing.

Tried the demo, and I have to say I like it a lot more than I feel like I should. The demo is an interesting mix of game and video clips, it has me wondering if the entire game will be like that. It ties in the whole "puppeteer" aspect of the game quite well. Gameplay is fairly simple so far, but fun. One hand controls the marionette's movement, the other controls aiming and shooting. Controls are a little touchy, especially when bullets start flying and you get excited. I had a lot of "accidentally-ducked-back-out-of-cover" moments. Still, I'm planning to get this day one - the atmosphere, narration, and feel of the game are awesome. Adding in Fruit Ninja (which my kids will love) is just gravy.